Persistence pays off: South Korea wins Olympic bid

South Koreans celebrate after Pyeongchang won the right to host the 2018 Winter Olympics in Chuncheon, South Korea, Thursday, July 7, 2011. The South Korean city of Pyeongchang was awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics on Wednesday, taking the games to a new territory in Asia after failing in two previous attempts. (AP Photo/AhnnYoung-joon)
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South Koreans celebrate after Pyeongchang won the right to host the 2018 Winter Olympics in Chuncheon, South Korea, Thursday, July 7, 2011. The South Korean city of Pyeongchang was awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics on Wednesday, taking the games to a new territory in Asia after failing in two previous attempts. (AP Photo/AhnnYoung-joon)
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Pyeongchang was determined to win in the first round after its previous two defeats. The Koreans had led in each of the first rounds in the votes for the 2010 and 2014 Games but then lost in the final ballots to Vancouver and Sochi.

There were no sympathy votes for the underdogs in the first round this time. Annecy's seven-vote total was the lowest since Quebec City got the same number in the first round of the 1995 ballot won by Salt Lake City.

"I think everyone said, 'I'm not going to play the usual IOC game," Pound said. "I'll give you first-round support. If I really support `X,' I'm going to go right there."

Still, he was surprised by the scale of the victory.

"I suspect that nobody thought that it was 63-25," he said. "It's not 2 1/2 times as good as Munich."

In its presentation, Pyeongchang displayed a world map showing where the 21 Winter Olympics have been held - 19 in traditional markets in Europe and North America and only two in Asia. It was a page out of Rio's effective strategy, which used a world map to highlight that the Summer Olympics had never been in South America.

Munich, which hosted the 1972 Olympics and was seeking to become the first city to host both Summer and Winter Games, had tried to cut into Pyeongchang's geographical and sentimental pull. The Germans argued it was time to take the Winter Games back to their roots in Europe, noting that the country hadn't hosted a Winter Olympics since Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936.

Munich delegates had spoken confidently of gaining momentum in recent weeks, but within minutes of Wednesday's result, bid chair and former two-time Olympic figure skating champion Katarina Witt was leaving the scene in tears.

A sense of bitterness was expressed by IOC Vice President Thomas Bach, a senior figure in Munich's bid. He suggested the Koreans had sought excessive sympathy from their previous failures.

"I think that was obvious in the Pyeongchang presentation," he said. "They were playing on this sympathy and compassion minute after minute. Rio was different. Rio did not play on previous defeats or sympathy or even compassion."